Frequently Asked Questions
General Questions
Q: How do you pronounce giclée?
Q: What is giclée?
Q: Is giclée just the same as a bubble jet printer?
Q: Where does the word giclée come from?
Q: What if I have a slide, or film of my artwork, but the original is no longer available?
Q: What if I can't send my original, and the art is too large to scan?
Q: What kind of medium reproduces well using giclée?
Q: What are the advantages of giclée over lithographs and serigraphs?
Q: What about copyright considerations?
Q: What is Art? (we have the answer)
Q: What does it mean to color manage my computer?
Q: Are there paints or paintings that don't reproduce well?
Q: Where is a good art supply store in the Seattle/Bellevue area?
Q: Can you recommend some canvas pliers?
Q: What monitors are best for graphics and photography?
Giclée Print Service Related Questions
Q: Is there a minimum order fee? Why?Q: At what resolution should I scan my work? How many megabytes should the file be?
Q: How should I prepare my digital files?
Q: How long do you store my files?
Q: Do you offer any kind of warranty?
Q: Can you accept digital scans or digital files directly?
Q: How is my artwork captured, or scanned?
Q: What kind of papers do you print on?
Q: Do you do art restoration?
Q: How do you pronounce giclée?
A: Do you feel silly because you're not sure how to pronounce giclée? Well, you're not alone. This is perhaps the most common question we get, and possibly a reason for people being shy on the phone. Giclée is pronounced (jee-clay). Here's a little sound file for you to play:
A: Giclée is a printing process that uses very high end bubble jet technology to reproduce fine art graphics. The first giclée printers were produced by Iris Graphics in the 1980s, and was first used as a system to proof commercial pre-press before going to plate. However, Nash Editions in California saw the new machines as having potential to be more than just proofing devices, and started using them to reproduce fine art prints.
Since that time giclée printing has come a long ways, and many improvements have been made in the accuracy of the printing technology, and the longevity of the inks. The leading printer manufacturers such as Epson, HP, Mimak and Roland have all spent millions of dollars perfecting the ink technology, creating archival inks to assure rich color and longevity.
For further reference see:
Q: Is giclée just the same as a bubble jet printer?
A: No. There are many differences that make giclée printing superior to a standard home printer. First, the large industrial printers have finer print heads, and are capable of using thicker and more varied substrates. In fact many of the top art paper and canvas manufacturers have made special paper just for giclée printers, that better hold the ink and ensure longevity and archival quality of the prints. Secondly the ink is different, and is of a much higher quality than standard printer ink. Lastly, the printers themselves are very large, allowing for printing of up to 44" wide, with virtually no limit to the length.
Q: Where does the word giclée come from?
A: Giclée is a French word that means to squirt, and is pronounced 'ghee-clay'. The reason it is call giclée is because the printers digitally dispenses tiny squirts of ink onto canvas or paper in a million droplets per second. This produces a print with a resolution higher than the traditional lithograph and with a wider color gamut than serigraphy. None-the-less, the word was in fact coined by marketers who feared the art world wouldn't accept this new medium as being valid. These days, however, much of the limited edition art you see in galleries is produced using giclée, and many of the top name artists use this method of printing.
A:We have high end graphic scanners that use ICE technology to digitally capture your film or slides. The quality and size of the negatives we receive will dictate how large your work can be printed. This needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis, and we will consult with you and make recommendations on the maxiimum printing size, and give you expert feedback on our evaluation of the final quality and size of print that can be achieved.
Q: Can you accept digital scans or digital files directly?
A: Yes. We have a file upload site so that artists not in the Seattle area, or artists who are tech savvy can provide us with digital files directly. Of course we can't do direct color matching without the original, but we will always do our best to produce a good looking print, and consult with the artist before doing a print run.
Q: What if can't part with my original, and the art is too large to scan?
A: You basically have two options. You can take the art to a photography studio, and have a positive transparency made using large format cameras. In this case we want a 4x5 transparency with a color card and or 18% gray card to allow us to do color matching.
Q: What kind of medium reproduces well using giclée?
A: Virtually all mediums reproduce well using giclée, and if done well they are hard to distinguish from the original. Oil paintings with high relief and texture will not look like the original due to texture. However, most oil paintings reproduce well, as do acrylic, pencil, pen & ink, charcoal, pastel, monotype and photographic mediums.
Q: What are the advantages of giclée over lithographs and serigraphs?
A: One of the greatest advantages of giclée over lithograph and serigraphs is that you don't have to do a full print run all at once. If you want to offer limited edition prints, but don't want to commit to the upfront cost of doing a large print run, then giclée is for you. The first couple of prints you sell should easily pay for the initial digitizing and printing costs, and then you can place additional orders as they are needed, without the cost or hassle of maintaining large stocks of prints.
The initial setup costs of lithography and serigraphy are very high, and often cost prohibitive for artists beginning their careers, or artists who only want to produce small print runs. However, if you are selling hundreds of prints at a time, then you may wish to consider lithography, and we can certainly help by introducing you to a good printer locally. Also, if you start with giclée?, and then find a particular piece is selling extremely well, and want to create a limited edition using lithography, we can give you the digital file all ready for the printer to use, thereby reducing setup costs.
Q: Are there paints or paintings that don't reproduce well?
Some colors will not reproduce well, or at all using the giclee print process. Although giclee printing has a wider gamut than four plate lithography, certain colors can't be produced with a printer. Things like iridescent colors, and fluorescent colors are out of the printer's gamut. Another way to think of it is non-natural colors.
Metalic paints are also problematic and can't be reproduced, as they represent the reflective properties of a metalic element, as opposed to a color range. Any silver, gold, copper, or metalic car paints won't reproduce well at all, and should be avoided. However, some options for reproducing metalics, foils, iridescents, fluorescents and such is serigaphy, hand touched giclee, or offset lithography using extra plates for the colors in question. All that being said, we've managed to produce a few that looked spectacular, so it's hit and miss.
Q: Where is a good art supply store in the Seattle/Bellevue area?
A: We tend to like Daniel Smiths. Daniel Smiths has two stores in the Seattle area - one in Seattle, and one in Bellevue. They have a wide variety of art supplies as well as a catalog, and a friendly and knowledgeable staff. We get a lot of questions from local artists about where to buy canvas stretcher bars, and we usually send clients there.
Their website is www.danielsmith.com. Look there for store locations and hours.
Q: Can you recommend some good canvas pliers?
OK. We don't know what the deal is with canvas pliers, but they're either really cheap and fall apart (like the Fredrix Canvas Pliers), or they're really expensive. There seems to be no middle ground for canvas pliers, and we looked high and low. So as strange as it is, the canvas pliers we chose were the Holbein Extreme Pliers, made of molybdenum alloy (whatever that is). At $130.00 they had better be durable! So far we've had no problems.
We also found this guy on the internet, John Annesley Company, who makes canvas pliers. We haven't tried them yet, but the description of why he went and designed custom pliers matches our experiences. There just is no middle ground. His canvas pliers aren't cheap, but they look fantastic.
What monitors are best for graphics and photography?
Increasingly PCs (Windows) and MACs can use the same monitors, so what follows is applicable to both platforms. Linux as well I'm sure...
Since CRTs are nearly a thing of the past, we'll focus as well on just LCD monitors.
Monitor types: There are IPS panels, VA panels, and TN panels. The IPS monitors have the best color resolution, and the best viewing angle of all the monitor types. S-IPS (In Plane Switching) panels are generally considered the best overall LCD technology for image quality, color accuracy and viewing angles, however they are very expensive. They are well suited for graphics design and other applications which require accurate and consistent color reproduction. The Apple cinema displays are all IPS LCD monitors.
VA (Vertical Alignment) Panels can also have high quality image ratings, but have issues with contrast degredation at viewing angles greater than 160 degrees. VA (Vertical Alignment) technology such as S-PVA/MVA are middle of the road LCD panels. They offer better color reproduction and wider viewing angles than TN panels, but have slower response times.
TN panels (Twisted Nematic) are the cheapest, but are the most popular with consumer based systems, particularly Windows systems. The response time, however, is generally faster on the TN panels, which meets the demand of gamers and home media systems.
Hardware calibration: allows a calibration device and software to create a unique ICC color profile to that monitor and computer, which best displays colors accurately. Some monitors do not allow for hardware calibration. The Apple moninors, for example, do not allow for hardware calibration (In most cases they don't need to).
If you're workflow requires you to have very fine control over your CSM (Color Managed System), then you'll want to pay close attention to this, and select a monitor that allows color calibration with systems such as xrite (greytag macbeth)products like the the eye one, Colorvision's monitor Spyder, and others.
Monitor Brands:The monitor brands to watch for in our opinion are NEC Multisync (LCD2690Wuxi), La Cie, and Eizo. The Eizo is the top of the line, but at thousands of dollars of cost for slightly better color performance, most people wouldn't know the difference. So if you need a good graphics monitor that can be hardware color calibrated, this should give you a starting point.
Q: What does it mean to color manage my computer?
A: Color management is the black art and science of matching all of the input and output devices so that color is consistent. This means that your monitor displays the same color that you see when you print, and when you scan a color document, the resulting image looks the same on your screen, and again output from your own printer.
There are a number of tools you can purchase to calibrate your equipment, and if you're serious about digital art and photography, you should definately invest some money in doing some simple calibration. The simplest tool is a monitor calibrator, and they range anywhere from under $100, to thousands, depending on your needs. We use the i1 by X-Rite, but you can search for monitor calibrators on ebay and find decent ones for $100-$200.
Q: Do you offer any kind of warranty?
A: Yes. First we guarantee you will be satisfied with the quality of the print, or we will remake it or refund your money in full. We believe in the quality of our work and stand behind it 100%
Secondly, we gaurantee the longevity of the print. We use the finest giclée papers and Epson K3 archival inks that will last at least 100 years. We also offer finishing services that include protective coating on top of the finished paper or canvas. All of this combined adds up to a quality print that will last a lifetime or more. If for any reason the print fades or displays imperfections, we will replace it.
Q: Is there a minimum order fee? Why?
Yes. We have a minimum order of $100. The reason is that we are a custom fine art printmaker and to do a quality job requires time, care, and expertise. We're not setup to do quick and dirty, cheap printing. We prefer to have a minimum order fee, rather than nickel and dime our clients for things like setup fees and minor proofing. If all you need is a $35 single print, then you would be better served by Kinkos. If you want a quality fine art printmaker, then we are your printing solution.
Q: How long do you store my files?
We keep your files for 2 years if there is no printing activity. In any event we will always backup the files to DVD before taking them off our servers. For our active customers, files are kept on our servers and regularly backed up.
Q: What about copyright considerations?
We keep your images strictly confidential. Bellevue Fine Art Reproduction does not allow any images to be printed without the artist or copyright holder's authorization.
We're often asked if we require artists to sign a form stating that the work is theirs. In general the answer is no. We generally don't check, and we can't really be the copyright police. However, if it's quite obvious that you don't have rights to it, then we can't reproduce it.
We do have some copyright release forms for various reasons, and if we're not sure then we'll ask you to sign a liability release form, and you're on your way.
The exception to this is art collectors who have rare pieces in their collections and want to have a digital backup and a copy for various reasons. In some cases collectors need high quality scans to show in catalogs on the internet, or for portfolios, which may fall under fair use. In some cases older works are no longer copyright protected, and the owner is free to do what they want with them.
Q: How should I prepare my digital files?
Some artists scan and prepare their work themselves, and send us the digital files. There are other "digital" artists who's work is computer generated (CG), such as fractals, photoshop collages, Corel Painter images, etc. And of course there is no shortage of photographers out there who want to see their work printed on high quality art paper, canvas, or on large format photo paper.
If you are one of these people, then the answer to this question is for you!
First, there is a large debate about what DPI is acceptable, and what formats are acceptable. We won't go there for now. Instead we'll try and make this as simple as possible to get your job done, and save the theory and debate for a white paper.
We will take jpg, bmp, ai (Illustrator), and other graphics format files. However, what we prefer is to have uncompressed TIF format images, with an embedded ICC profile. In most cases this will be your working profile. In some cases it may be derived from your camera profile, or your monitor profile. In Photoshop when you "save as" you will see a dialogue that comes up to save the image with an ICC profile, like this:
The next dialogue you'll see (in Photoshop, other programs will vary) is the compression. Select no compression, and IBM byte order.
This is where JPG files can yield sub-standard printed images, as JPG files compress the image, and in many cases degrade the image quality. If you can, go TIF.
Q: At what resolution should I scan my work? How many megabytes should the file be?
A: This is a question of great debate, and you will get different answers from different people. But in general, a 300 dpi file will produce excellent results. A 270 dpi file will produce very good results. A 150 dpi file will produce decent results depending on the subject matter. As for file size, the size of the file in megabytes will depend on the amount of detail in the file, the amount of color and the color depth. What is really important is that you pay attention to the DPI, or PPI (dots per inch, or pixels per inch).
So for example, if you have a file that is 3000 pixels by 2000 pixels, then it will print with excellent results at 10" x 6". A good 8 Mpixel camera like the Canon 20D will produce a file that is 3504 x 2336 pixels, and you can make fine prints of up to 20" x 16". In that case you will be printing at 175 dpi, and that's about as high as you can really go with that format and still have it look good and crisp. But fine art is usually more demanding, and if at all possible we would prefer to print images within the 360dpi to 270 dpi range. Anything lower than that and you'll often get quality degradation.
But there are other factors as well, such as file compression and bit depth, all of which go far beyond the ability of this FAQ to explain. In short, scans should be 300 dpi with at least 8bit depth, and should be saved as TIF, or JPG with no compression. In the best of all worlds your file will be 300 dpi at the size you want to print.
Q: How is my artwork captured, or scanned?
A: This depends on the individual piece of artwork. However, we prefer to scan the original artwork using our Better Light large format scanning back camera. We have invested many thousands of dollars in the finest fine art digitizing equipment in order to ensure that your artwork is captured perfectly. We are even capable of scanning very large pieces of artwork with our equipment.
The scanning back camera uses a 4x5 large format camera, and specially calibrated equipment to ensure that the camera lens and the artwork are at perfect right angles. We also have special lighting that produces full spectrum light, and polarizing panels and lenses, in order to accurately capture the full color spectrum in your artwork.
In some cases, with very detailed and minute drawings, it may be better to use one of our high end flatbed scanners. In either event we prefer to do direct digital capture of original artwork whenever possible.
Q: What kind of papers do you print on?
A:We print on art papers, photo papers, and canvas. Although brands may change due to availability or quality issues, we keep the following categories of media in stock: Epson Photo Lustre, Epson Photo Glossy, Photo Matte. For Fine Art Paper we keep a Velium (velvet) stock, and a textured stock, and generally like heavy papers (310 gsm). For canvas we stock a matte and a gloss. However, the gloss is more difficult for us to keep in stock. For more detail see our papers and canvas page.
A:Yes, we do digital restoration. That is to say, we can scan an in original painting that is damanged, then digitally remove cracks, fire damage, fading, and other problems before it is printed. We can also restore photographs in this way.
However, if you're looking for a service that does art restoration on the original, then you're probably looking for someplace like http://phoenixartrestoration.com/.
If you have questions that are not addressed on the FAQ, please go to the contact page and send us your question. We will answer your question promptly and in many cases add the question and answer to this FAQ.
